


Asseveration

by dinosuns



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Devotion, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Keith (Voltron) Needs a Hug, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Leadership, Nature, Personal Growth, Season/Series 03, Self-Doubt, Trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 08:02:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16237502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosuns/pseuds/dinosuns
Summary: Keith has lost Shiro to colossal forces tearing them apart once before. This time he stands with defiance, staring down the barrel of a gun held in the palms of the universe and daring it to shoot. It doesn’t shoot, but he feels bruising impact in his chest anyway. A deep crater forms from the exit wound, rupturing everything.Then one day, Keith sits in the cockpit of the black lion and his presence stirs it awake.--The universe will have to try harder if it thinks it has a chance at plucking this affirmation from him.





	Asseveration

**Author's Note:**

> my piece for the Wyld Fire Keith Zine. Had a blast writing this one, really proud of how it turned out!

****Shiro is gone.

And there’s a cruel irony to that. In the sand, Keith had sensed the blue lion, and honed intuitively onto its strange unfamiliar energy. But in the stars, he can’t sense Shiro. Still, Keith searches. Both methodically and irrationally, he and Red sift through the debris of their last battle over and over again.

Unlike Kerberos, Keith has more leads this time. That makes it worse somehow. Shiro disappears, again, and Keith is powerless in the face of it. When it counts, Keith can’t keep his word. He can’t save Shiro.

Months pass, and Shiro is still gone. _Still,_ Keith searches. He ploughs through three different star systems, meticulously working through the rubble until it sears itself into his mind and he can search some more between each and every blink. Because on his eyelids he sees it - the wreckage that tore Shiro from the black lion. It’s the same wreckage that tears through him.

But even in this, he sees nothing.

That’s not okay, not when the insatiable yearning to _know_ sets him ablaze. Keith has to know what happened to Shiro, for good. He needs tangible proof. So he keeps searching, and searching. It’s not a cycle that is remotely cathartic, and the lack of results is alarming.  

Allura had approached him once in the hangar after another unsuccessful search. He’d torn off the helmet, gasping for air. It had been suffocating, failing Shiro again. Keith had waited by the red lion, expecting a lecture, but Allura said nothing. And when their eyes met, Keith had seen it. Pity. For him, for his silent suffering nobody seemed to understand. Even as they had stood a few feet apart, there were whole galaxies unfolding between them.

And still, it’s not even half the distance the universe puts between Keith and Shiro.  

“Your search has been most assiduous,” Allura had finally offered just when Keith took two steps past her. He had heard the question and it brought him to a standstill - _how long will this go on?_ Fist clenched, he had given a weak nod as his answer. There was every chance if he opened his mouth the fire turning his insides to molten rock would spill from his lips and burn not just him, but everything and everyone. Without ceremony he had retreated to his room. _However long it has to,_ echoed in his footsteps.

It echoes louder now. Keith has lost Shiro to colossal forces tearing them apart once before. This time he stands with defiance, staring down the barrel of a gun held in the palms of the universe and daring it to shoot. It doesn’t shoot, but he feels bruising impact in his chest anyway. A deep crater forms from the exit wound, rupturing everything.

The others grow worried about him, or at least about Voltron. Keith isn’t sure which.

Then one day, Keith sits in the cockpit of the black lion and his presence stirs it awake.

Keith doesn’t understand.

Hours later, Keith still doesn’t understand and Shiro is still gone. These two awakenings make little sense together. The black lion had come alive for him, just as it had done when they crash-landed and Shiro had been in trouble. _What was the black lion waiting for? Did it know more about Shiro’s situation?_

The questions coax something hot and relentless boiling beneath his skin into bursting. Speculation is pointless without evidence to quench it. Right now, it seems like the only one in the castle set on finding Shiro is Keith. That includes the black lion and that just isn’t okay, _how can that be okay?_

Keith goes to the hangar. His steps are heavier than he wants them to be. Perhaps they’re the heaviest they’ve ever been.

From the moment he steps inside, the black lion towers over him. It’s a symbol of hope marred by words that linger in empty corridors and collect behind heavy eyes. _Heavy._ Everything is so heavy.

“Why?” Narrowing his eyes, Keith stares intently into the unlit eyes of the lion. “You helped me once. So why - why not now?”

Exasperation pours over him as he’s greeted by silence. This approach isn’t working because the lions are different. With Red everything had been imperative. Direct. Sharp They clicked into the same fast tempo. In contrast, Keith doesn’t know how the black lion works. Stepping closer, Keith keeps his voice low, head bowed.

“You... chose me.” Jaw clenched, a palm traces across the black lion’s leg. Not out of reverence, but respect. “I need to know, I - I have to know why you _have_ to tell me why!”

The black lion is still, remarkably distant. Their connection is overshadowed by something truly terrible which consumes every fibre of Keith’s being. Immeasurable loss.

“If we’re doing this, then you gotta help me.” The lion's jaw unlocks, allowing Keith to come inside. Breath hitching, Keith’s resolve falters. Walking up to the seat is more daunting than the times before. It feels too real.

To sit where he sat.

To follow in his steps.

To make _new_ steps.

It isn’t right. It can’t be right. Not like this. _Never like this._

“Come on.” Black remains unresponsive. Frustration nestles in his chest, threatening to implode. Keith tries again. “I said, come on!”

Nothing.

“Move!” Keith rams the controls back and forth to no avail. Sharp panic rises in his chest. When he needs it most, needs to _find Shiro,_ the black lion is still. “I said move! We need - you have to help me find him. We saved him once we can save him again but I - _I need you to work with me._ ”

Nothing.

“Why won't you help me?” The prickly moisture in his eyes builds. Keith closes his eyes, shaky breaths rattling through him. “Help me. _Please.”_

There’s nothing but silence.

Then comes a roar. Eyes snapping open, Keith watches the control panel light up. And before he can begin to process what it means, the lion moves. Then it’s roaring again. Then it’s ejecting him out to the void of space. Then it’s rejecting him - _no no no this can't be right this can’t be how it happens- stop!_

With nothing to cling onto, space is an endless plain to merely propel his spinning.

Keith realises whilst spinning that this is it. This will be his last failure.

_I’m sorry, Shiro._

Then it all stops.

♘

Keith wakes to unfamiliar surroundings. Scrunching his nose, he splutters. Apparently, he also wakes to _an unfamiliar pungent smell._

“Shiro?” he manages. Nothing. He gets to his feet, the surface is mossy and damp, only to wince. Sudden movement is still a bit too much. _Where he fell,_ he doesn’t know. There’s an eerie vacancy about this place, like he may not just be the only person here but the only person who has _ever_ been here.

“Guys!” Pause. “Anybody?”

Nothing.

Glancing around with urgency, Keith frowns.

“It looks like some kind of marshland…”

No - this is definitely a marshland. Whilst the desert had been somewhere familiar to him, an environment he had become used to living in, he doesn’t have much experience with marshes. In fact, he’d only been there once on a school trip. It’s the only school trip he’s ever been on, because it was the only school he’d been at long enough to _get one_.

Keith remembers the trip, vaguely. Twelve years old, on a bus with kids that he didn't know and quite frankly didn't really want to know. They had never made much effort with him, he saw no reason to make an effort back. They'd stuck to a path, wellies and bright coloured coats mapping them out. _Don't go too far ahead,_ the teacher had insisted. Keith had never been one for sticking with a group, or being slowed down by them, especially when nature was so _exciting._ There had been so much to see, so much to explore and figure out! Keith also isn’t much for setting a slow pace. Endurance is something he always had been gifted with. So it’s only natural he wound up getting ahead of the group - and, ahead of himself.

His haste had him falling splat into the marsh water as the ground beneath his feet gave way and left no room for balance. He’d landed beneath a barren tree with a spindly spine. Luckily, his red jacket had been easy enough to spot. But it had still been embarrassing to be the one to fall over. Keith rarely ever lost his footing or his sense of grounding in nature.

He’d been forced to stand in the middle of the group. With folded arms and pursed lips, Keith had listened begrudgingly to the teacher explain things about the marshland. He didn't understand why he couldn't just find out all that stuff on his own, or why they weren't allowed to _interact_ with nature.

Nature isn’t just an exhibition to view and marvel, but the teacher hadn't seen it that way. As a result, Keith had gotten back onto the bus unsatisfied and covered in muck.

By comparison, there’s an eerie aura here. Mist covers the horizon, but Keith can make out the jagged silhouettes of trees poking out from the shrubbery, serrated like the teeth of a giant monster waiting to bite. Beneath his boots, it’s wet. One glance down confirms it: mud. He’s walked right into the thick mud.

“Guess I should watch my footing.”

From what Keith can see, there’s no real pathway. That’s dangerous, because if this really is a marsh, then there’s no telling between the long reeds and heather up ahead where the ground ends and where the water starts.

Gritting his teeth, Keith scans the area. Wherever he is _he doesn’t have time for this._

"Why did you bring me here?" Keith asks, spinning around on his heel to get a sense of his bearings. His voice echoes. That’s unusual - marshes are wet, but they sound dry. The scenery is remarkably bland the more he tries to make out landmarks or chart a course. Similar. Static. Stagnant. The mist makes it hard to see much further than a few feet at a time - it just all looks the same.

And this is where nature goes from being welcoming and accommodating to completely terrifying.

"Are you - are you even here?!"

Nothing.

No response. _Of course._ Keith doesn’t know what he expected. The black lion had chosen him, but it doesn’t speak to him _._ Not like Red.

Reaching down for a piece of a branch by his foot, Keith throws it ahead. Testing the waters, quite literally. The branch doesn’t sink, which counts for something. Cautiously, Keith takes a step forward. His boots hit the mud. There’s a noticeable dip, but enough firm ground to continue.

As he walks the squelch of his boots is all Keith hears. No bird calls, no frogs or crickets… no wildlife. Everything is quiet, almost contained.

“Where… am I?”

The further he goes, the more the mist clears. The landscape resembles that of something from earth, almost replicated and stripped from its roots. Striding forward, Keith spots the silhouette on the horizon. Even now there are no signs of people or animals anywhere, just shrubs, water, mud, and mist: miles and miles of it.

Some trees are scattered up ahead, but one stands out. It’s familiar in an impossible way.

“It can’t be.”

It is _._ It’s the same tree, that spindly tree. This isn’t an alien marsh. No. This looks like the marsh he had been in on the school trip. Reeling at the information, Keith quickens his pace.

"So that's what this is, huh?" Keith asks, unable to keep the flat tone from his voice. The black lion must be listening in. After all, it brought him here. He’s been somewhere like this before - trapped in his own memories, only wearing a different suit. "Some kind of test."

The thought of Shiro's belief in him not being enough for the black lion knocks the breath from his lungs. It hurts. Shaking his head, Keith continues walking. They don’t have time for these games, for _whatever this is._ Shiro is out there somewhere. The universe needs them. But that doesn’t mean Keith isn’t angry about this.

The ground get less even as he walks. Glancing across the shrubbery ahead, Keith makes out the pattern from the small dips. Some areas of the marshland ahead shift in a telltale way, places where the water is more saturated are lower. The subtle difference in the land creates a map. But not one Keith can follow with certainty, because whilst he’s been here before it doesn’t mean this _is_ that exact same place. He's seen no proof of that.

A silhouette catches his attention in the mist ahead. The closer he gets, the less clear things are. It’s a horse, just one lone horse.

“Well,” Keith says. “That’s weird.”

The horse is mysterious and somewhat out of place. Not entirely, though. Keith recalls reading in a book once about the white horses roaming freely in a marsh in Europe. The exact place evades him, Camarg-something - it’s probably not important.

Slowly, Keith stalks forward. The horse is well-built, body splashed with mud and dirt. It must've been running, only Keith doesn’t remember hearing any kind of sound besides his own footsteps.

"Hey," he says awkwardly. The horse bristles at his voice, wary and unsettled. But it doesn't run. Inching closer, Keith holds a hand out placatingly. It takes a few moments, but the horse seems to consider whether to let him closer. With a huff, it stamps the ground.

"Easy, easy. I'm just -... trying to figure out what’s going on." Keith glances around, unsure. "Do you know?"

It’s foolish to even try, but Keith has to give it a shot. The horse stares, dark eyes locked on him. Reaching out a hand, Keith bites down on his lip. He's never gotten _this close_ to an animal before. Not really. For a moment, it’s as if he’s reaching out to the black lion. _I know I'm not Shiro, but he needs our help._ His hand makes contact with the short rough hairs above the nose. The horse pushes into his hand, and Keith gasps in surprise.

"Woah," he breathes in open awe of the moment. It’s pretty cool.

Apparently, a small shuffle forwards is a step too far. The horse jolts back, and Keith mirrors the actions. Another huff has Keith stepping back further.

"Hey, hey. Woah. I - it's okay.” Holding his hands up, Keith sways as his feet meet a shallow puddle. “I’m sorry I got too close. I can find my way out of here in the other direction… maybe.”

Unexpectedly, the horse bows its head, leaning down. At first, Keith doesn’t understand. Then it becomes clear. Mounting the horse, Keith grips the mane tentatively. He won’t tug, but he needs something to hang onto.

"How's that?" he asks, once again getting no response.

Keith takes a deep breath. The extra height gives him a slightly better vantage point, the view hasn’t changed much. Before they move, he needs some kind of marker as to where to go. But deep within, he already knows exactly where he’s going.

The spindly tree on the horizon.

Opening his eyes, Keith nudges the horse with his thighs and they veer to the left. As the mist rises around them, it reveals a sky dusted with pink and orange. The landscape is warmer, tinges of colours brighter than the dull murky green and yellow from earlier. Keith picks up the pace, clicking his tongue. There’s no telling how long he's been here, or how long he _might_ be here either. He has to get to that tree. His instinct is never wrong. He has to follow it, chase it down.

It led him to Shiro once, it may do again.

The horse gallops on his request, moving expertly through the marshland. And off they go. Leaning forwards to get better grip, a raspy laugh escapes his lips. The wind cards through his hair and it’s exhilarating. This feeling is so very close to flying, and that sense of pushing against the very fabric of the universe is a sense of belonging that can never last.

Something moves to their right, and abrupt urgency fills him. What he sees can’t be true. No. _No way._

"Stop! Stop, we - I have to stop!" Keith calls out but it won’t listen, set on taking him to the tree.

Keith swings a leg over the horse. No longer straddling its back, he steels himself. He has to get off. He has to pursue what he thought he saw. Even if there’s a slim chance, _he has to take it._

Jumping off the horse, Keith falls gracelessly and face-first into the mud. Well, he may not be twelve years old in a red coat and wellies anymore, but at least he’s keeping up continuity. The horse is long gone by now, lost to the mist. But that’s not what he’s hoping to find. Hauling himself up, Keith frantically searches. Nothing prepares him for when he catches sight of Shiro’s silhouette.

Breaking into a run, Keith pushes through the shrubbery. It’s a messy terrain, making it near impossible to run through. By the time his feet touch the ground, the resistance is high. Still, he doesn’t stop. He _can’t._

"Shiro!" Keith calls out, voice cracking on the name. "Shiro, wait!"

Stumbling through the mud, Keith grits his teeth. _Come on, come on._ His hands reach out towards Shiro. There’s a raw desperation to it all. Keith can _see him_ in the mist. But Keith had also seen the mirage of Shiro before on the horizon in the sand. Shiro is right here. Then he’s not, slipping through his fingertips.

_Please be here, please. Please._

The shape of the trees ahead carve out his shadow, only to pry it out of reach: it’s the very same way the universe puts Shiro in his life only to constantly take him away. It’s so unfair. No, it’s _unforgivable._ How many times would this vicious scene play out? Fiercely, Keith lunges forward. He slips on the thick mud, barely managing to hold himself together.

“Give him back!” he yells, voice splintering. “Just-”  

Keith falls.

And as the exhaustion barrels into him, the mud smearing across his armour, he doesn’t move to get up. The sky is a pale blue above, strikingly clear. It’s the only thing that’s clear. Shiro is gone. The horse is gone. It’s all gone. His body slumps back against the thick mud, bones aching and skin burning. A bitter sense of defeat ensnares him, the serrated teeth of this landscape finally clamp down. Maybe he’s in the jaws of a monster after all.

A bird soars above his head, circling. Keith watches it, blinking slow and heavy. _Everything is so heavy._ He lifts a trembling hand upwards, fingers ghosting over wings he can’t reach.

Funny. He’d always wanted to fly.

Sometimes with Voltron, he really thought he could.

Closing his eyes, Keith chokes on a wretched sob. Despite being completely alone, it’s too much to let the building anguish out. Acknowledging that crushing grief, the pressing guilt - it might just be enough to break him.  

Maybe it finally has.

♘

Keith has always felt aligned with the natural world. Whether out of choice, or a force inside that just shifted gears better in the company of something unspeakably supermassive, with nature there is always a place for him. Nature doesn’t forge meaning or wax poetic about existence. Nature lives and sometimes it loves and then it dies. Searching for higher purpose - and being abandoned by even _that -_ is the fundamental crux of Keith’s own being, the razor edge of the blade he carries close.

The universe is infinite, cosmically large in a way that is either overwhelming or comforting.

Perhaps both.

And if Keith is anything, he is a nature boy: prodding at earthworms curiously with sticks, listening to the birds and learning their calls, sitting on the porch in the desert and counting the scorpions in the sand. Nature may not have ever given him purpose, but that’s fine. Keith never wanted anything handed to him on a plate, and it had never been that way either. Nature simply gives him an opportunity to exist. _To be._ Be wherever he chose, be whoever he chose. In spite of whatever unfolds around him, nature is constant. Continuous.

With sharp instincts finely tuned to the workings of his environment, Keith is adaptable. Despite being remarkably brittle, no force breaks him. Not completely, at least.

So naturally, Keith starts walking again - only it’s at a pace that doesn’t match his usual resolve. The fog ebbs away, giving a clearer impression of the horizon. It’s cold and wet, enough for the tips of his fingers to sting at the crispness in the air. Still, it’s better than the stale smoke that chokes him in space, the debris from a wreckage he had dug up and never put to rest smothers his lungs because _how could he put that to rest-_

Anyway - nature boy, _ha_. Evasion in the form of good music he had no way of obtaining. He’d heard that song once on the radio in the desert. Some old channel that seemed to appreciate dusting down media, long forgotten by a world consumed with insatiable futurism, played it once. The lyrics had struck him. Finding identity in song is something Keith seldom does. Mostly because the tragically embarrassing reality is he can relate to far more than he would ever admit.

One line about eternal isolation or kingdoms built on the foundation of a deep-set trauma never truly acknowledged but always felt is enough for his lips to catch in a chasm. To laugh bleakly at realism or to cry with that strange euphoria relatability clawed out from a soul - that’s the real pinnacle of personal plight.

The kind of plight he’s caught in now.

Because right now, Keith is so very lost.

The compass point swings turbulently, direction unhinged. He doesn’t know where to go, where to turn. _He doesn’t know so much._ It’s overwhelming, the lack of answers. But still, he walks. He walks because surviving is one thing that has never left his side. It’s always been there with him.

So on the precipice of his own undoing, Keith walks and he doesn’t stop.

Sometimes that works against him. But today, it works with him. A flash of white moves past him. It cannot be anything other than the white horse. As the horse slows its pace, Keith’s eyes widen. He lost it, he left for a different path. But it found him, _it came back for him_. Lips twitching, he clenches a fist.

“I know what I have to do.”

The horse rears, sunlight caught behind it. He can’t hope to match its speed as it takes off, but Keith runs with everything he’s got. The mud splashes his face, the ground grows unsteady. The low-lying trees scrape against his cheeks, his balance falters and falters some more until he almost falls. But he fights it. He runs. A few beats ahead, the white horse calls out to him. It’s not a roar, but the thudding in Keith’s chest from hearing it is intense enough for it to be.

Up ahead, the spindly tree comes into view. It’s the final drive of determination Keith needs. Pushing through the weariness clouding over him, he throws himself harder and faster into every action. As he heaves for air, his body gives out. He collapses, stumbling to his knees in front of the spindly tree. Above him, the white horse stands majestic and strong. Just like the black lion in the hangar.

At the base of the tree, the faint gleam of metal catches his eye. Keith reaches down, scraping the mud away. The shape is unmistakable. Hoisting the object up, a mantle he has yet to truly accept, Keith tugs it out from the ground.

It’s the black bayard.

“That’s why you chose me?”

Keith wipes the grime off the handle. He realises then. When he goes to wipe a hand across the symbol on his chest, he sees the red poking out from behind the thick black mud staining it. Nature doesn’t take a brush to his armour and paint it black out of mourning. It’s simply a truth he has to face.

Nature doesn’t cleave Shiro from his heart and still try to scrape the remnants away he fiercely clings onto. _Nor does the black lion._ It never has and it never will.

"I understand now," Keith clasps the bayard tightly in his hands. “We’re not giving up.”

 _Of course they’re not._ That’s a sharp dangerous _never_ etched into his skin with intensity that cannot be erased. The universe would have to try harder if it thinks it has a chance at plucking this affirmation from him. But that’s not what is happening here.

“We have to help those who need us.” Pause. “Together.”

Bringing the black bayard closer, Keith strokes a thumb across the surface with reverence. To sit where he sat brings them closer, not further. To hold what he held strengthens their chances of a reunion. This is their bayard.

And Keith will carve his path relentlessly through the starways, do what he has to in order to ensure the great tyranny of the Galra empire is undone. He will fight with every fibre of his being to make the right choice for the greater good, to honour Shiro with every move he makes. He will do whatever it takes to realise everything Shiro saw in him, and in the team. In this, he’ll make Shiro proud.

Looking up at the white horse, Keith smiles weakly.

“What are we waiting for?”

The marshland tears open beneath him at the words. Keith falls through the vortex of time and space at speeds that ought to be impossible. But he lets it take him. He’s not afraid. There are bigger things to fear than his own mortality. There are bigger things to deal with on their horizon.

Pressing the bayard’s handle to his forehead, Keith squeezes his eyes shut against the swirling colours. He pushes into it, wanting to feel the bayard indenting his skin. It can leave its mark, like hot iron branding as testament to the strength of his will. When he opens his eyes, Keith already knows where he’ll be: back where he started in the pilot seat of the black lion.

This time, Shiro isn’t gone.

Shiro is here.


End file.
